What if Washington Came Back?

On Joe Rogan 45 said he’d beat 1 in a fair fight. Let’s game it out.

Paul Greenberg

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Illustration © Barry Blitt

This Weekend Donald Trump suggested that he’d beat George Washington were he to come back from the dead. “Sir, if George Washington came back and Abraham Lincoln was his VP,” Trump said one of his pollsters told him on Joe Rogan’s podcast, “they couldn’t beat you.”

It’s an interesting premise, Trump vs. Washington. What would happen?

Let’s take a look:

First of all one has to ask whether such a contest would even be allowed. Were Washington to run today he would have to break the precedent that he himself set for the country when he voluntarily left office after two terms in 1797. Moreover he’d have to figure out an end run around the Twenty-Second Amendment which institutionalized the two-term limit in 1951. This second bit would not present a problem because Trump has already begun laying the groundwork for a third term. Earlier this year he argued before the grandees of the National Rifle Association that since Franklin Roosevelt had been allowed four terms he should be allowed at least three.

Deeper into the campaign as things got dirtier Trump would inevitably question Washington’s potency. In an attempt to…

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Paul Greenberg
Paul Greenberg

Written by Paul Greenberg

New York Times bestselling author of Four Fish as well as The Climate Diet and Goodbye Phone, Hello World paulgreenberg.org